


Lying's the most fun a boy can have

by heretherebefics



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 05:24:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heretherebefics/pseuds/heretherebefics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor comes back from a trip with Clara and finds River in the TARDIS</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lying's the most fun a boy can have

He trotted into the TARDIS, laughing. Clara had been dropped off once more, safely home again. It had been lovely, just a quick jaunt to Saturn’s moons. There hadn’t been much trouble and she was thrilled with the necklace she traded for. Most of all, she was still alive; he had promised himself that it wouldn’t happen this time, she wouldn’t die and she hadn’t. All was well.

He bounced to the console, flipping the levers to send himself off once more as he bounced. After the course was set, he spun to grab his hat and instead found his wife. He laughed again, grinning at her. “Didn’t know to expect guests, even ones as welcome as you dear. What have you got for me this time? Action? Adventure? A good snogging?” He chuckled and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I think I might have been around Clara too much. She’s starting to rub off.”

She remained quiet and nearly expressionless, merely taking him in.

“I was just going to Alpha Centauri A to visit some old friends.” He spun around and checked some read outs, pressing a few keys before spinning back to her. “I haven’t been back in forever, not so sure about you. When are we?”

Her eyes swept over him a final time before meeting his. “They’re all dead.”

He stilled, confused. “Who?”

“All of us. Everyone you’ve taken with you. We’re all dead.”

“River, what’s wrong with you?” He took a step closer, trying to touch her arm. “They’re fine. I just left Clara off again.”

She slipped away from him, still watching him coldly. “She’s been dead for years, ever since you let her fall.”

“That was the other one. This Clara is very much alive.” He said, beginning to panic and scan.”

“She never came back. None of us did.” She shook her head. “We’re dead.”

“I just left her. And Martha and Mickey have a son now. Donna’s married. Rose is with the other me, and her mum. Your parents are happy. You’re here.”

“I’m not. I’ve never been.” She looked around, skimming a hand over the rail. “I’ve never been aboard.”

“But you are right now.” He said, sweeping his hands out in front of him. “How could that be true? You’re right here, now. In the TARDIS.”

“You only ever met me once. And I died.” She moved, lounged across a jump seat. “Why you picked me I’ll never know.”

“But you, and your parents. We got married River.” He swept a hand through his hair. “We’ve done all sorts of things.” He looked her over for signs of harm, anything to explain this. “What’s happened to you?”

“You happened, just as you always do.” She shifted, looking the TARDIS over. “We’ve tried to tell you for far too long and it has to stop now.”

“Who’s tried, what has to stop?”

“All of this. Even you aren’t here. We’ve tried to tell you it’s all stories and you wouldn’t listen. And now you’re almost dead.”

“I’m fine!” He threw a lever, letting them drift. “And no one is dead. Or dying. If you’re dead, how are you here?”

“You picked me, so I’m here. Put me in your stories and kept me around you, popping me in to hold the thread together.”

“And your parents?”

“They’re not. Amy died when she met Prisoner Zero. You barely met Rory.”

“We spent years…”

“You’ve made up years. Amy died. She was never with Rory. He pined but she never looked at him. He killed himself after she died, didn’t want to live in a world without her in it. Or so the note said.”

“What about the Pandorica then, the Byzantium?” He struggled to figure out why she would be saying any of this, trying to hurt him this way.

“Stories. We’ve tried to tell you since the Byzantium. It’s all just stories in your head.” She rose, toying with a few controls. “But it has to stop.”

“I don’t believe you. About any of it.” He shook his head, as though he could shake her words away. “I’m brilliant, but I can’t make that up. I can’t make them up, any of them.”

“Oh? How long did you know Martha?”

“Years. I should have been better to her. I was still stuck on Rose in another universe. But she saved the world, defeated the Master.”

“Wrong.” She said flatly. “You knew her for hours. She died in the hospital. The oxygen ran out. You survived, though barely.

“She can’t have. She and Mickey…”

“Dead. You never saved him from the Plastic.” 

“He and Rose came with me. We traveled. Fixed things.”

“Like the universe where Pete and Jackie are happy?”

“Yes. And Rose came back, helped Donna save me again.”

“Rose died at Canary Wharf. There is no other universe with all of them.”

“I’ve met Pete, and not just at the paradox.”

“You haven’t. You’ve made that all up, all from bones.” She passed a hand over a monitor, trailing her fingers over the frame. “Pete and Jackie? They hated each other. He didn’t die in a car accident. He left when Rose was five and never looked back. Died in an alley in a pool of his own sick, drank himself to death. Jackie didn’t even notice the obituary when it ran, she was too busy chasing whoever struck her fancy. But you knew that, and didn’t like it. Never could figure out why you gave them a happy ending; you didn’t like Jackie, and yet you made a whole world up for them.”

“You’re wrong.” He said flatly. “Who are you? Why are you lying to me? Pete and Jackie made up over there, had a baby. Mickey came back, met Martha.”

“None of it happened.”

“Who are you?” he asked coldly, going to grab her. He found that his hands passed through her and he took a step back. He turned, running scans and found nothing aboard but them. “What are you?”

“I’m nothing.” She replied softly. “And Donna? You never saved her. She didn’t make it past her first wedding day. Even you couldn’t fill in that gap, when you had us meet. I couldn’t tell her because you couldn’t fill, because there was nothing to tell, not because you made her forget.”

“Donna saves everything. How can you say she died?” he punched keys, pulled up footage. “Here. She’s here. They’re all here.” Screens flipped from images of one to the other, showing adventures with all of them.

“The screens are blank. You’re just filling them in.” she said quietly.

He looked again and the screens were blank. “How’d you do that? What are you doing?”

“I didn’t do anything sweetie.” She stepped closer. “It’s you.”

“What about you then? If I only met you once, why are you here?”

“I don’t know that either. I died at the Library. Properly dead, like all the others. For some reason, you picked me as the love interest in your story, gave my death a reason it never had. I didn’t know you before the Library, aside from a few stories.” She sighed, turning to take everything in. “My life was falling apart. It was my last expedition before my time at the university was up; they were ‘condensing’ resources and I was no longer needed. My team were the only family I had, and they all died. So I chose to take on the burden. You were still useful to the universe. Instead of that, you made it into a grand romance, made me so much more than I ever was.” She nearly laughed. “And I haven’t the faintest idea why. You don’t either. If I don’t, you don’t. Of everyone, you picked me. Not as the only, but as the most recent. You cast off Amy, and Clara for me. And neither of us will ever know why because you’re dying and you’re too stubborn to admit it.”

“I’m fine!” His voice nearly echoed in the space. “I’m standing here, in my ship, having just dropped off a very alive companion. Now tell me who you are and why you’re doing this? What do you want?”

She closed her eyes and took a breath, stepping closer to the console. “I’m you, and what’s left of the TARDIS matrix, desperately trying to get you to wake up and maybe have the barest chance of saving yourself.”

She brushed a hand harshly over the console, leaving bare wires in her wake. He blinked, knowing she hadn’t been rough enough to harm the ship, but he leapt forward and pushed her away, fumbling with the exposed pieces to put them to rights.

“What did you do?”

“I’m just trying to show you what’s there. You never broke free of House. He’s draining you just like he drained everyone else. If you admit that, you might have a chance of saving yourself. I don’t know what good it would do, as the TARDIS is so close to gone, but you might have something better than slipping out without ever noticing.” She rounded on him, pushing him into the seat. “None of this is real. It hasn’t been real in months. You’ve spun years and years to make it all better, but you can’t right all those wrongs. They died. I died.”

“Amy and Rory were there, with me. If I’m dreaming, what’s happened to them?” he asked, struggling to rise before she pushed him down again.

“Stories. Words.” She said harshly. “They never left. You promised her safety and she died.”

He swallowed hard, looking around the TARDIS for any sign of who this could be. “The Master then. How was Amy even around if Martha died and didn’t stop him?”

“You stopped him, long before he took over anything and he let himself die. You burned his body and wept because you had failed again.” She said angrily. “Even you name is a lie. Nothing about you heals. You know you’re a death merchant. You trade one life for others, but there’s always a deal to be made. You want to be the good wizard, or the man in a bad place who finds a way but you’re not. You’ve always been the dark figure in the alley, the devil lurking around the bend and you know it.”

He rose again, trying to pull up videos to prove her wrong, to make any of this make sense. The TARDIS would never let someone else on board who she didn’t trust, so there must be something wrong with his River, something making her like this. Maybe the Silence had triggered something, some buried impulse to hurt him and they figured this was far better than killing him.

He pulled up photo after photo, video after video, and as he looked at them, pieces began to fade, melting off the page. Where Martha had stood with Mickey, there was only an empty lot. Where Donna had modeled her flapper dress, there was just an old manor house. Amy and Rory faded into nothingness over and over again. Even Kate Stewart faded off the UNIT documents.

“Stop it! Stop corrupting the files! These are mine!” He shoved her harshly into the chair, towering over her. “How are you corrupting my matrix?”

“I’ve done nothing.” She said, calm again. “You’re remember as it was, not as you wish.”

“What happened to Kate then?” He pointed to the documents. “Where’s she gone?”

“She’s alive and well, having never met you.” Another document slipped up the screen, showing her dressed simply and among books. “She never believed her father, never would have wanted to have anything to do with UNIT, if she knew it existed. She left home and never spoke to the Brig again. She became a professor, still works at the same university.”

More documents flew up, obituaries and news clippings of crises he had averted. But these were full of carnage and names he knew too well.

“These can’t be real. If I made it to the bubble universe, they couldn’t be.”

“You fled to the bubble universe. You couldn’t deal with the old one anymore.” She said with an ugly laugh. “Too many bodies piled up that you couldn’t forget. I guess this is perfect though. You can live in denial until it kills you. Perhaps then you’ll feel better about everything you’re done.”

He stepped closer, tried to touch her, to make sure she was real and his and he was dreaming. She felt solid and looked as she always had, unless he thought about it too much. Then her features didn’t seem quite the same as they were before, but he passed it off as aging, as their back-to-frontness.

He spun, pulling up videos again, videos of him with all his companions. Snapshots, as he liked to think of them. He was in all of them, bouncing or brooding or dashing about but he was very alone in all of them. He was obviously directing remarks at someone, seemed to be touching or reaching for someone, but they were all blank.

He searched the faces of the passersby for some indication that he was right, that these were tampered with, that his memory was fine and these bits of data were the lies but everywhere there were sympathetic looks, people crossing the street and avoiding his eyes. As he passed through crowds, they parted for him, moving wide as though breathing near him might give them whatever was affecting him.

He turned, tears in his eyes now. “Why? Why are you doing this?” he asked quietly. “Whatever you want, just stop this.”

“I have no wants. You want to wake up, some part of you. You always were a survivor. You want to survive again. Stop lying for once and look at the truth of it. They’re dead and you will be too if you don’t stop.” She moved towards him, taking his face in her hands. “There’s no bringing us back. We’re all tombs.”

“No.” he whispered. “It’s not…”

“I’m not real. This ship isn’t real. All of what I have told you is very, very real.” She rose, brushing the screen and showing a scan with barely beating hearts. “There you are. That’s real. You can feel it and you still ignore it.”

His breath hitched and he felt a sharp squeeze in his chest. Black dots blinked across his vision and as he looked, the console flicked, monitors blinking out and bulbs cracking. “It can’t be. I am the man you say. I am a liar and a fool and death sticks to me like burrs. That,” he said flicking a hand towards the monitors. “That’s not real. There were good days too, and good people. All of them were the best.”

She looked at him, her eyes said. “You won’t do it, will you?” She walked to the console, powering off screens and watching as lights flickered out. “You won’t admit what you are now, who you’ve been for so long.”

“I’m not the man you say I am.”

“You are every inch that man.” She shook her head, kneeling before him. “No matter how many stories you craft, no matter if you die here, that will always be the man you’re remembered as. Savior of world, surely, but always leaving the stink of death behind.”

With a sigh, she brushed at his hair. “Rest then.”

He nodded, resting his throbbing head against her shoulder. “Why did you do that River? Try to hurt me?”

“Help, sweetie.” She said softly. “But it’s lost on you.”

His eyes drifted closed as he rested against her, as he remembered doing so often. And soon he was asleep.

And in a room with a muddy floor, he took his last breath. Beside him lay Idris, her body burnt out by the matrix hours before. As energy poured from him, the planet feasted and rejoiced in the last of the timelords.


End file.
